This is Biden in December 2019 before his covid infections. Earlier this year a neuroscientist said: "I've never seen the type of damage SarsCov2 leaves behind (in the brain) after infection with other viruses." You'll never convince me covid hasn't played its part in this
People often keep their ill-health a secret because in capitalist societies with supremacist foundations ill health is considered a personal failing and a sign of weakness. Becoming 'unproductive' is treated like a crime unto the system
This mindset is embedded into institutions, from governmental to medical and is why people with chronic illness are so often dismissed by doctors and told to get back to work by the state. To support you in your ill health would be considered rewarding of weakness
You can find people who want to help, but they are the exception not the rule and tend to be people who themselves have an oppositional mindset to the mainstream. To flip this around requires flipping the system. This is not about tweaks and reforms
In late May Argentina's far-right leader Javier Milei toured Silicon Valley, meeting the billionaire tech elite. Earlier in May he'd hosted Peter Thiel, boss of spy tech company Palantir, a key US, NATO and Israel contractor, at Argentina's presidential mansion. What's going on?
The short answer is that Milei is attempting to destroy the foundations of the regulated welfare state in Argentina. And this is good for the tech elite who crave blank, country-sized canvases onto which they can project their dreams of a trans-human future
Milei preaches free markets with religious zealotry and wants to abolish the state. He is hellbent on withdrawing state support for unemployed and disabled people, and has spoken of installing facial recognition every few metres across the country
One fact almost universally misunderstood about the covid pandemic is that after 2020, excess mortality was higher for adults under 55 than over 55. That trend persists to this day
These tables are by the US Society of Actuaries. In the first 6 months of 2023 excess mortality actually came in negative (anything under 100% is lower than expected) for most age groups over 55 and was highest in 35-44 year olds
Across all age groups covid did more killing in 2021 - the year the pandemic was declared over - than in any other year
Scientists have found what they call 'the master regulator' of the immune system in the human brain. If it holds up it's a stunning discovery that could transform treatments for autoimmune disease and post-viral illnesses. What did they find, and how?🧵
They found that neurons in a part of the brain known as the caudal Nucleus of the Solitary Tract (cNST) fire, or misfire, to produce a balanced or dysregulated immune and inflammatory response. They found, in their own words, “a new brain circuit.”
A circuit that helps determines how your body responds to infection. A response that determines if you live, die, or develop a post-viral or autoimmune condition. Let’s delve in to the detail.
This is big. Scientists have identified the cells in the brainstem that sense immune cues from the body and act as "master regulators" of the body’s inflammatory response. "The discovery is akin to a black-swan event. It's a whole layer of biology we haven’t even anticipated”
"Finding ways to control this newly discovered body–brain network would offer an approach to fixing broken immune responses in various conditions such as autoimmune diseases and even long COVID, Jin says." h/t @oldfshndanne nature.com/articles/d4158…
In true shitty science publishing style the full paper costs $25 and is too new to be available via the alternative means through which I can usually access them, but hopefully soon. Or maybe someone else has it?
Chimps in Uganda have started eating bat faeces after their regular food source, the rafia palm, was wiped out by tobacco farming. When scientists tested the bat guano they detected 27 novel viruses, including a previously unknown coronavirus science.org/content/articl…
Despite what you might have heard, global demand for tobacco is rising, not falling, leading to more area being cleared for tobacco farming. By 2030 tobacco sales will top a record $1trn prnewswire.com/news-releases/…
British American Tobacco contracts 18,000 farmers in Uganda to grow tobacco. In 2015 leaked documents revealed the company had deployed various tactics to stall Uganda's first tobacco control legislation tobaccotactics.org/article/uganda…